In the Black: The Story of a Date

For a date the other week, M and I dropped off N for a kiddie pool party and headed to Kohl’s for some clothes shopping.

“Would you do this for me?” a sales lady met us at the door with a store charge card application. “It helps us with vacations and–my, what a pretty baby–and salaries, and saves you on purchases and….” She rambled on and asked a couple more times if we’d do it just for her before I had the presence of mind to say, “We’ll see what we want to buy today and then decide.” One piece of clothing purchase later, we walked away charge free.

We headed straight to a consignment shop for kids’ clothing. Somewhere we’d been given a couple gorgeous pieces of elegant clothing that N never wore and we guessed H never would, either.

“If they offer less than $20 for them, let’s think about it,” I told M. “I bet this stuff would sell nicely on eBay.”

“It may be half an hour until we can look at your stuff,” the lady said. “We’ll call you when it’s ready.”

We strolled over to the grocery store, bought a four-pack of Izzy, and sat on the bench by the soda machines out front to pass the while. There’s nothing quite like warm soda to make a terrific date, so even before the store called, we stopped back in.

“It might be a while,” the lady said. “Maybe an hour?”

We left for carry-out pizza, which cooled in the back seat while M nursed H and my stomach growled, then drove to a nearby arboretum to eat in the pleasant shade and converse as only married couples on dates can.

When we returned to the consignment shop, we learned that none of the items we’d brought were of interest to them–too unique, or dated, or something like that.

I was indignant. Such elegant clothing, unwanted by people with more-informed taste than ours?

I would show them. “eBay,” I thought, “Here I come….hmmm…eight dollars should cover shipping…start the bidding at ninety-nine cents…here are some sloppy photos….okay, done. Let the bidding begin!”

Both items sold…for ninety-nine cents. “Oh crap,” I thought. “I wonder how much shipping’s going to be.”

$14.10, including the free packaging I arranged using bagel or bread bags and paper sacks the grocery store uses to send home ice cream boxes but excluding the calories I burned pedaling over to the post office after school one day.

“And I wonder how much eBay and PayPal will take.”

$2.65.

Which left us at least in the black, if only with $1.38.